The present invention relates, in general, to inspection techniques, and more particularly, to a novel method of inspecting the leads of a semiconductor package.
In the past, a variety of methods have been employed to inspect semiconductor packages for the presence of bent leads. These prior methods generally involve shining a laser beam on a lead of a semiconductor package, detecting light reflected from the lead, and moving the package to permit the laser beam to sequentially shine on each lead of the package. The time interval between reflected beams is used to detect the presence of a bent lead. Such an inspection method generally requires a considerable amount of time to inspect each lead of a high pin count semiconductor package. The lengthy inspection time results in a high inspection cost.
Accordingly, is is desirable to have an inspection method that rapidly detects the presence of a bent lead, and that has a low inspection cost.